Blizzard gave us access to the starting Pandaren area (The Wandering Isle), and we were able to play through with any of the Pandaran classes. I created a female Pandaren Monk and got to play through The Wandering Isle. Not too much has changed since BlizzCon, but it is still a fun experience. Blizzard has taken their experience from the Cataclysm’s starting zones and applied it here creating a very awesome, unique, and detailed starting zone for Mists of Pandaria.
The female Pandaren is a beautifully done model, and I think many players will enjoy playing as the female Pandaren. Most of the facial customization models were very ‘cutesy’ and the animations were solid. It will be something to look forward to in the Mists of Pandaria beta.
Some of the unique quests included fighting with other monks while keeping your balance on beams and jumping from beam to beam (which was accomplished by clicking on the beam itself). There was a lot of story behind all the quests as well, as you went through various areas to get the different alemental types (elementals made of ale).
A fun element in the opening area for Pandaren were the pools that change the player character into a different animal while standing in the pool, like a frog or a crane.
The Monk is fairly unchanged since BlizzCon, as well, as it still is a class with quick cooldowns, although now it appears that the Monk outputs white damage. We were unable to 100% confirm this. The Monk has really fun play mechanics such as a kick that shoots the Monk through the air for a long time that looks like it will be retuned before release because of the amount of people I saw killing themselves with that skill.
The Pandarens are an awesome addition to World of WarCraft, and the ability to choose your faction later on, is a pretty unique mechanic which I think most players will enjoy.
